Most people think that to get rid of a manipulator is to stop talking to them, or stop being around them, throw them out of your life. But don’t forget that the way they got into your life in the first place was by sitting a watching you without you knowing. Don’t you think they could just do that again and then change their patterns to make you think they had changed? A good manipulator will know how to do that. So by just kicking them out, especially with the internet now available, isn’t the only answer.

Unfortunately a lot of people have had to file restraining orders and even those sometimes don’t work. I have had to file two in my whole life and one worked, he stayed away and within a year things had settled down enough that it could be dropped and we both moved on. But the other one. Wow, he violated it 10 times before he was finally picked up. He was served and immediately that night started calling my pager and leaving messages thinking that it couldn’t be traced or recorded. He thought wrong. I saved them and I also recorded them with a tape recorder. Then within 24 hours, my car transmission fell out, come to find out, the brackets were removed. Then there were his friends calling me at work pretending they weren’t with him. I just told them that I was very sorry but I would not be able to talk to them anymore because they would be violating his restraining order. He found one of his friends that I didn’t know and asked them to follow me. He finally, 5 days later, borrowed a friends truck and was sitting across the street from my house watching me. A local security guard caught him and called it in.

He got away. The next day I called the officer that had been at my house the first night he had been told to leave and asked him for help. I hadn’t slept in 5 days and he was fooling the police into thinking I was the crazy one. The officer asked me where I thought he might be and he found him and took him. When the officer called me back he told me that he could only be held for 24 hours and to get some sleep. I did. The next day I got rid of my favorite car, found a new place to live and quit my job and found another one. I had to completely rearrange my life because this guy thought for some reason that I was his. Let me tell you, this is not the way to get a girl. Stalking is illegal and if someone tells you not to call, don’t call. They don’t take chances anymore, it has become a more serious offense. If you need to find out how to get a restraining order or what else you can do legally to prevent someone from stalking you, call your local authorities, laws are different from state to state and support is different from county to county. Do not hesitate to file, I almost did and I would be probably be dead today if I didn’t. His actions were escalating.

Wow! I’m almost tempted you ask you what your stalker’s name was because he sounds so similar to the one I had when I was in my 20s! Totally ignored the restraining order–when the person is mentally ill enough to stalk, they aren’t thinking straight enough to care what a legal document says. Like you, I had to move, buy a non-descript car (and I SOOO loved my bright red sports car, dammit!) and change jobs. I had to be so, so careful, everywhere I went and make sure no one followed me home. I moved to a totally secure building where you had to have a key to even get into the hallway of my apartment in addition to the key on my apartment. I always varied my route and if I even suspected he might be following me, I wouldn’t go home until I felt safe to do so. When I started dating again, I was so paranoid that I would only meet in a public place, took the same caution of a different route home and wouldn’t even give out my phone number. I made the guy give me his and it was MY choice whether and when I called or not. This was all 15 years ago and I STILL have nightmares about this guy occasionally. Unless you’ve lived the nightmare, you can never possibly know what its like.

On behalf of all survivors, I request that if you know someone who has been stalked, don’t tell them to “just get over it” and “move on” no matter how long ago it may have happened. You can’t possibly comprehend what its like to be someone’s prey and just how deeply it can damage you psychologically.

realangel

On April 2, 2009 at 9:07 am

It is really hard to just “deal” with this stuff and get over it. It does make you paranoid about who you are meeting and where. I am going through a divorce. He is the one who left but he is the one causing problems now. You just never know who it will be or what to watch for. My soon-to-be didn’t seem like the type at all and now I’ve had to file another protection order and have his guns taken away. It can be scarry. They couldn’t find him to serve him so I told his attorney twice that I didn’t want any contact with him and gave him a copy of the protection order. I was still contacted by him, on email and he called the father of my twins to talk to him about me. Do they think that isn’t contact?